by Chuck Seaver, South Lake Tablet
Building Blocks Ministries held its annual celebration on Saturday, November 5th at the Wesley Center in Clermont. Emcee Daniel Whitehouse, a longtime supporter and past board member of BBM, introduced Executive Director Paula Whetro. Whetro opened the event with a warm welcome back after a two-year pause of the celebration due to the pandemic.
Building Blocks Ministries (BBM) is an organization with a mission of empowering adults with developmental disabilities to dream, believe in themselves and engage in training designed to support individual achievement.
Whetro announced that BBM was awarded $99,500.00 in grants this year from a host of grantors that included: $10,000.00 from the United Way of Lake & Sumter Counties; $10,000.00 from the McLin Foundation; $9,000.00 in scholarship grants from the Kiwanis of Clermont Foundation, Williams Foundation and the Crooker Steves Foundation; and,
$70,500.00 from the Florida Department of Transportation for the purchase of a new minibus and for preventative maintenance of the organization’s transportation buses.
Whetro and Board Vice-President Keith Cartwright recapped an impressive list of services provided to the Ministries clients through on-site staff: 30,924 hours of training by Day Training Program staff; 5,286 healthy, nutritious lunches funded by the Florida Département of Elder Affairs and provided thru a partnership with the Wesley Center; and 6,131 trips have been provided to and from the Day Training Program and into the community for training activities. Connection to the Agency for Persons with Disabilities was provided to twenty-nine individuals and their families to secure funding for essential services.
Focus soon turned to the many clients of BBM that attended the celebration. To see these clients together is to see family-style friendships that support each other, cheer each other on and reveal deep desire by each one to be a constructive part of the everyday community. That desire is exhibited with passion thru the BBM’s Kiwanis Aktion Club. The club is supported and sponsored by both the Kiwanis Club of South Lake and the Kiwanis Club of Clermont. The Aktion Club establishes community support projects such as diaper drives, shoe drives, food drives and other areas of need in the community. The club also volunteers regularly at The Neighborhood Center, an organization that supports families who have found themselves in a food emergency.
Kiwanis advisors to the Aktion Club, Thomas Battisto and Catherine Bateham, outlined the connection between the clients, Kiwanis and the community thru programs such as South Lake Charities, Read to Sydney, The Neighborhood Center, and other non-profit organizations that support the community.
The highlight of the evening was the revealing of plans for a brand-new home for the BBM. The building project began in 2019 as a dream that could serve up to one hundred individuals each day. The Board of Directors of the Harper Family Charitable Foundation listened and graciously donated “seed money” to kick off the project.
In 2021, after the pandemic loosened, The Live Well Foundation of South Lake awarded $800,000.00 towards the building project. The momentum continued and the Community Foundation of South Lake awarded $20,000.00 towards kitchen space and/or restrooms.
During this year, the BBM Board of Directors made a commitment to use $50,000.00 of the organization’s reserve funds toward the project. Board members have also made pledges toward the project along with personal donors. This brought the total collected to $910,000.00 of the 1.5 million needed to complete the construction. Now in the achievement phase, an additional $590,000.00 is needed to complete the project. With rising property costs in the area, it was decided to move forward and purchase land now for the property needed and divert the continuation of soaring land prices.
The property has been purchased and plans are well underway for the construction of the new facility. The 6,000-square-foot building will allow one-hundred clients a day to participate in the organization’s training and coaching programs. The building will include eight classrooms, five restrooms and open spaces for training activities. The property is located at 644 Gadson Street, Groveland.
Whetro concluded with the acknowledgment that “we aren’t quite there yet”, while quoting Mother Theresa as saying, “I can do things that you cannot, you can do things that I cannot, but together, we can do great things”.
To see how you can help in making this dream come true for so many, please reach out to 352-536-9264 or visit www.buildingblocksministries.com.
